


The Re-Animated Groom

by Webtrinsic



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Corpse Bride (2005) Fusion, Arranged Marriage, Assisted Suicide, Dr. Hill is still a creep, Falling In Love, Herbert West Being Creepy, Herbert has some feelings, Inspired by Corpse Bride (2005), M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Marriage, Murder, Past Daniel Cain/Megan Halsey - Freeform, Possessive Behavior, Sad Daniel Cain, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26748769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Herbert has to marry Megan Halsey to take over her father's practice. He accidentally marries a corpse instead.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Kudos: 18





	The Re-Animated Groom

**Author's Note:**

> I liked the idea but this didn't exactly turn out how i wanted being so distracted with school and stuff but I hope ppl like it regardless
> 
> god herberts such a dick i love him so much
> 
> also their shared piano song is " a beautiful delusion" by peter gundry because i love it and it gives me corpse bride vibes

_Marriage: the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship._

Herbert West wrung out the definition in his hands, bodies parts dissolving in vats around him, boarded up and hidden to the world. He’d have much rather taken them back to the Miskatonic graveyard but it had flooded and frozen over for the time being and he was working against the clock; his first official meeting with his bride to be looming unpleasantly over head.

There was nothing personal about their relationship, wouldn’t be, even after the knot was tied. Their unionization would only benefit him by allowing him access to Dean Halsey’s practice upon his death, and yet Herbert begrudged the acting and fanciful theatrics he’d have to endure and partake in to get to that point. 

It’d be a marriage in name only. Doctor West truly hadn’t believed he’d marry, or if he did that it’d be a union born of love. Something at times he seemed utterly incapable of. Not to mention he wasn’t the most...established of men. 

His degree and the old money he came from were what kept him level with the more esteemed members of society.

His attitude, _negligence_ , and thirst for his work on the other hand, made him aloof in the eyes of every buffoon who felt privy to his recompense when confronted by his obvious god complex.

Word travelled fast, Meg had to have heard his of reputation by now, especially since he’d come to town to work at her father’s establishment. 

He’d been fortunate the position had been open, the reasons for that opening were shrouded in an array of mixed feelings that no one brought up, even when their lips were painstakingly loose. A surprising feat and still he wouldn’t torture himself with their drivel by asking.

It was entirely likely Meg already resented him, he certainly resented her. From what he understood she was a dolly blonde moralist who’d likely only faint and cry the minute she caught sight of what he was capable of. 

Women fancied declarations of love. Something he didn’t quite know how to profess (even artificially) other than with scientific query. Even so, often enough, to his own understanding, and his own opinion: declarations of love oftentimes rang loudly with the bells of possession. Something he could relate to as he heard their call much louder than the dormouse that was love.

Meg may have her doll-like features and etiquette, but Herbert didn’t have any use for toys. She was a cover for his pursuits, a ticket to more equiptme-oh, maybe he did have a use for this particular toy. If she said yes that is, she didn’t have many options otherwise so it was a fair bet she would. He wasn’t particularly worried, he’d manage either way. 

“Herbert!” His mother’s voice at the door and her titular knock made his breath shutter in a repressed groan of frustration. Pulling his sleeves back down, Herbert headed towards the door with the uppermost feeling of contempt. 

What a meeting this would be.

* * *

He’d been right in his deduction that she’d be less than pleased with their arrangement. Meg clearly detested him by the look she fixated on him the second he walked through the door after shaking hands with her father.

She’s been exceedingly cordial when she wasn’t spaced out. Almost as if she were falling into a state of comatose, or looking for someone who wasn’t there, or rather _no longer there._

He didn’t pay it any mind after a while, not until the rehearsal of their vows. His words were flat on his tongue, and she didn’t move to light the candle or even lift her cup. 

The only emotion to his words were sirens of frustration as they repeated the damn ceremony nearly a dozen times. His irritation thankfully was shared, and he didn’t hide the relieved exhale of air as the reverend dismissed them from the church. 

The woods were just off yonder, he knew he shouldn’t stray too far in case they called him back, not to mention that the sun was quickly setting. Herbert just didn’t care, he was irritated and itching from anger and withdrawal. 

His work, the re-agent, the pungent yet affirming stench of death. It called to him and he nearly broke into a sprint, the cool weather a deep breeze that tampered off the further he immersed himself in the orchard of thickets and gnarled roots.

He’d completely missed the man standing just on the edge of the woods, watching him with rapt eyes and a pleasantly surprised grin before they started heading in the opposite direction back towards the church.

* * *

The moon bore down on the scientist, highlighting his wan features as he paced the sullied earth. The ring in his pocket mocking his resolve, filling him with a sense of foreboding at the shackles he was thrusting himself into in the pursuit of his work.

It was with great restraint he didn’t throw the ring into the thickets. The thin band of gold meaning little to him when compared to the glimmering green syringe filled with his re-agent. 

His next act was humorous, indulgent even for him. Then again, he’d always been a man seemingly married to his work, and the vows he flatly recited to his bride to be came out with such conviction now when he attributed the words to his life’s work.

“With this hand I will lift your sorrows,” the doctor blearily slipped the ring over the gnarled root sprouting from the ground that closely resembled an actual hand. If he hadn't been so preoccupied with his words, maybe he would have realized it really was dirtied bone he’d bestowed with gold.

“Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine.” The wine his re-agent, the cup his body. The metaphors blurred, the ecstasy of his work bright enough in his mind for it not to matter, the re-agent continued to be the only thing to bring him happiness as much as it brought him despair.

“With this candle, I will light your way into darkness,” Neon green and anger at Meg simmered in his veins. 

“With this ring,” Herbert theatrically gestured to the grasping banded appendage from the earth, his knuckles just barely brushing against it’s supposed fingers, “I ask you to be mine.”

The words reverberate throughout the earth Dan had long since been submerged in. His bony fingers snapping into a fist, the feeling of metal engulfing his skinned finger filling him with something suspiciously close to warmth. 

Such beautiful vows, such a lovely declaration, all for him. Asking for his hand even whilst belonging to a realm beyond those of a mere mortal. 

The ground he’d been entombed in shifted with little resistance and the once solid branches and roots holding him hostage were brittle and easily broken. 

Freeing himself from his unmarked grave, Daniel Cain looked upon his husband with awe. The shorter man was just as taken aback. A lovely start to a marriage, just as long as he said yes, and how could he not when he asked so nicely? So intensely.

“I do,” the smaller man’s brow twitched in the slightest, head tilting in almost an almost question but seemed too tongue tied to do anything more than stare, gaping in the same manner a fish out of water would.

With the vows completed, his acceptance of the proclamation done with, there was one last thing left to do. Taking a step towards his stunned husband, the tall decrepit corpse gently wrapped his hands around the man’s forearms and brought him closer. 

The man came willingly albeit with some stumbling. His plump lips all too inviting, Dan didn’t hesitate to lean his head down and kiss his husband senseless. The darker haired brunette’s lips were cold, certainly warmer than Dan’s but Dan wouldn’t let that fact destroy the experience even when it wasn't what he’d hoped for.

Dan had more than enough enthusiasm for the both of them, and soon enough their lips would heat each other up.

* * *

Realization dawned all too suddenly upon the scientist as he feebly, instinctually pressed his lips back for a split second before it was over. 

He’d spent countless hours of research, sleepless nights stacked with experiments that brought him little results. He’d come so far in an endless research, and all at once, without his real interference. Completely by chance, his words had re-animated a corpse with more success than his re-agent ever did.

In all honesty it was a little disheartening that all his work could be undermined by an admittedly fortunate misunderstanding. Regardless he could at least take in that no matter how inadvertently he’d done it, he’d successfully re-animated the dead.

Reanimated himself a husband. In Herbert’s own mind this mangled Adonis before him, for his own purposes, was a step up from Meg. Also he had no concern for gender, in fact marrying a man likely would have suited him better regardless if he did or didn’t need a front.

Whoever his blue skinned partner was, abandoned in an unmarked and shallow grave, he gave him the ongoing feeling of proclivity. This man very may well be his endgame, the answer to his life’s work, the chip on his shoulder he was missing.

“Daniel Cain,” the man introduced, seemingly enraptured and Herbert ate at the attention being given to him. It was terribly obvious Daniel was infatuated, positively smitten, now currently waiting ever so patiently for him to respond with his own name.

“Herbert, Herbert West,” the still living doctor adjusted his glasses for a second as Dan repeated his name lovingly a few times under his breath. 

It’s in that split second Herbet really takes him in, and not just his contradictingly charmingly good looks.

Firstly he’s dressed for the occasion, nestled in a torn and drained white tuxedo, the color parched meaning there was a time that it was once gray.

Secondly, there is a hole in his husband's chest. Exposing chalky ribs littered with specks from a limited lifetime of calcium consumption. It is presumably the point of which his death came to be. Likely stabbed, the knife cutting through tissue and inevitably puncturing a lung. Asphyxiation staining his lips blue just as much as the cold.

Daniel's left arm is all bone with no tendons to pull or muscles to flex. The elements having completely decayed every inch of the unsubmerged skin it could weather into its ongoing production of existence.

They're exceedingly lucky that the ring goes on the left hand because if the man’s right arm had been the one protruding from the earth, the ring wouldn’t have been able to fit his left hand with the skin still stuck on it.

For the walking dead Daniel remained strong. 

It’s clear from his actions he was just as formidable without any epidermis or fat than he likely was with it. The absence of flesh seemingly hasn’t bothered him much, however it seems Daniel’s been entangled and buried in the earth for what Herbert can surmise as a year or two with nowhere to go. And if there was, it apparently wasn’t as strong of a motivator as the ring on his finger was. 

“It’s beautiful,” the comment brings Herbert back to Dan. The white tuxedo clad cadaver, his husband, stared longingly at the moon. Shyly the man gave a sheepish smile with his dangerously thin right cheek, “I haven’t seen anything so bright in awhile,” if he’s expecting Herbert to say anything in turn, Dan doesn’t press when he can’t muster up a response.

Feeling as if the man’s sincerity had thrown him on his ass Herbert grew a little ashamed with how easily the man pulled him out of his element with a simple bashful smile. 

Herbert’s moment of alienation is thwarted when Dan begins to hungrily take in his surroundings, offering his hand for him to take as he soaked in the land of the living once more with eyes that’d witnessed death.

Tentatively he latches onto bone, following the man’s lead with vigor. It’s hell to keep up with the man’s eagerness and longer legs but he is determined to keep up. 

It takes them longer than it would have taken Herbert alone to get the stone bridge, Dan having stopped countless times on the way, even the dimmest instances of mediocrity catching him off guard. It would have been annoying if Herbert wasn’t so intrigued with the way the man moved. 

Dan less than carefully looked over the bridge's edge, the sloshing and freezing water beneath a simple pleasure he wanted to drown himself in. 

Herbert’s arm wrapped strategically around the man’s waist, afraid that if Dan fell in his arm would detach the second he tried to catch him.

The contact had Daniel turning, his still intact hand folding back around the other man’s hip. Dan really hoped Herbert liked downstairs because he couldn’t stay up here forever, no matter how badly he wanted to. 

His left lacerated cheek pulled with his grin, the wind in a gust ran along their spines, the whooshing overtaking the approaching footsteps, and all at once the two of them; husband and husband were in the underground.

* * *

That morning Meg pulled herself out of bed with reluctance, willing tears not to build up in her eyes for the maids would be in and supply pitying looks to her plight. Two long years had passed and they were trying to marry her off once again. 

She was meeting her supposed deranged fiance on the anniversary of the love of her life’s disappearance. She’d loved the immaculate Dan, handsome and all too kind, devoted with a heart that she knew would grow to love her in time spent together. He truly seemed to have no hate or even distaste for any soul, a more than suitable match for a mate.

Whoever this Herbert West she had been betrothed to was nothing of the sort, and his name alone enacted something primal within, warding her off as if he were a legitimate terror. 

Eligible bachelors in Arkham weren’t easily found, the pickings thin, and for the time being there was a tie between two uncouth choices, the latter, even with the town’s murmurs, she knew was a better alternative than Doctor Hill.

She’d known Hill since she was a young girl! How her father even expected her to consider that perverted man as an option she had no clue. Oftentimes she could almost believe Hill had her father and half the town under his control. 

The thought of Herbert West made her want to run and hide but Carl Hill made her want to die. Solemn six feet under, away from his leering eyes and domineering gate would be an unmatched heaven she could only dream of. 

And she does dream of it. Fantasizes of a charming meadow where children run around her feet and her husband: Dan, stands tall behind her, his arms wrapped firmly around her waist and his breath ghosting over her nape.

She sees him, she hallucinates his presence. It alone stops her from acting, from lighting her candle or raising her glass because it is wrong.

It is not any better as her fiancé disappears frustrated like everyone else. They hound her with questions and tuts she doesn’t stand for after a couple of hours and the moon is rising.

They are all so enraptured with setting things up again for the next day they don’t seem to care that Herbert hasn’t returned, and she herself was slipping out to the outside world.

Her skin bristles in the wind that is winding significantly in the direction of the old bridge. It is as good a distraction as any and she gives chase as if she could physically see its waves.

Seeing the wind would be an easier sight than her fiancé and her blue decrepit ex-fiancé locked in an embrace being surrounded by dark sparkling embers before they vanished completely.

“Danny,”

* * *

The air spittles in his lungs and his eyes dilate and pound against his skull. His vision rights itself to an unknown world that doesn’t make catching his breath any easier. If Herbert’s entirely honest, he’d deduce from his elevated heart rate and seizing lungs he was in fact panicking.

It wasn’t pleasant, although, if it'd been a result of genuine fear rather than his body's natural reaction to sudden transportation. It’s a blessing and a fault it is simply his animalistic response to an unrecognized stimulus.

Herbert instinctually follows the path of all things and looks to the sky, the haze and cavernous roof is splattered with roots and there are dusted shadowed clouds marking this sullen sky.

Their underground but not, he can’t tell and he wants to. Except for now he has more pressing matters to attend to.

“Sorry, should have given you a warning,” his husband apologized, bony hand reaching out for Herbert’s own, a small squeeze following.

“This is the afterlife?”

“Yes and no, really just for the ones with…” Daniel trailed off sadly, his grip tightening just a bit more as if looking for comfort. Herbert held back hoping to spur him on, the bone against his skin suspiciously endearing.

“There’s more to it...not everyone gets closure. But we make do,” Daniel is pulling him around now, guiding him in this brightly colored town. The neon green lights make the mad scientist feel more at home than he’d ever felt in his life...if he was even alive here.

His heart was certainly beating. Stopping in his tracks, Daniel stumbles, not expecting his halt before Herbert is pressing his palm to the Adonis’s chest in search of a heartbeat that isn’t there.

The only movement is the huff of a laugh that isn’t entirely happy yet fond all the same. Several other cadavers mull about, watching him with surprised eyes that aren’t as daunting as the looks he gets above ground.

“Congratulations,” a few people croon, pats on the back are given to Dan and smiles are sent his way before they go about their business. Their unionization is seemingly already known, and for once in his life when there are speculative eyes being turned their way, he is not on the receiving end of the ones that most resemble pity.

It’s annoying above ground that people pity him for his drive and assumed madness and lack of care, yet he can’t understand why that same look is being sent towards Dan. The blue tinged man takes it with stride, ignoring it with more emotion than Herbert would ever let slip.

Dan wasn’t made of stone, and if there were times he could be, this wasn’t it.

“How did you die?” The question could have been said with more tact. Herbert knows he can be blunt and easy to throw out others feelings in pursuit of knowledge, but even he realizes he's made a misstep with his husband, because the sadness displayed on his husband's face physically pained him.

He had a working theory of the death itself, and truly it seemed like a horrible way to die. It’d seem the circumstances were even worse because the impossibly standing skeletons and half decayed bystanders went quiet.

There’s a rattling of bone as a skeleton approaches, “I can explain that,” Dan is awkwardly picking at his decayed hand, wringing them in front of his torso, gesturing with his head for Herbert to go along with the skeleton.

The doctor backs off at the discomfort his husband shows knowing he caused it, he still needs answers so he goes along with the skeleton. There in a bar of sorts, drinking water that’s almost clearer than what he drinks from the tap.

“The corpse groom, a wedding awaited. A fair match that would be torn apart by a vulture looking to marry the bride and cease power. Led astray the groom’s life had been reaped and the bride for all we know didn’t come looking nor did they reunite. All is well in that the groom had been plagued by a loneliness he both dreaded and hoped marriage would fix even when unsure of his partner. The bride in the end never found him, you on the other hand did.”

The words raddled inside the man’s head, yes, he had found him. He’d found the groom, _his groom_. The main problem being his biggest commitment in life wasn’t here in this place underground. In fact, he’d never get his hands on it again if he didn’t go back.

Of course there was nothing stopping him from continuing on with life after this. This alone was proof his re-agent had the actual potential to work. Marriage was a mortal tether that proclaims ‘Till death do us part’. He wasn’t dead! Dan was, so it wasn’t even set in stone. He could still marry Meg, get the practice, come back to experiment with Dan’s help and they’d be none the wiser.

How did he go about getting back then? Dan reappeared then, looking in from the doorway, embarrassed and almost ashamed. Herbert didn’t entirely understand why. Being murdered wasn’t the man’s fault. Then again people blamed themselves for less.

Making to leave, Herbert placatingly gripped his pseudo husband's arm, the two walking in a direction only the dead knew. The seating area they found themselves at was admittedly astounding, mainly because of the view it looked out over.

“I used to think the view was the best thing I’d ever see after I died, I’m glad to be wrong,” Dan flatters, confusing Herbert for only a second before he realizes what Dan means by the man’s loving gaze.

Herbert turns his now flushed cheeks away from the fondly smirking groom when he startled nearly a foot into the air at the brushing of a cat’s skeletal remains against his calf.

“That’s Rufus, I think he likes you,” Daniel explained, getting on a knee awkwardly with his skewed balance as he runs his bony fingers along the cat’s spine. His pinky knocking into each rib causing the musical wisp of sound to meet the air.

“It would seem that way,” he replies, animals never having been his forte, and when they had they’d been dead. But in this situation Herbert wasn’t quite sure that counted. Indulging the bones, his nails scritched around the holes where the ears would normally sit.

“Daniel, I’ve come to the realization if we’re to be married. I should at least inform my mother,” it’s a lie, a good one, one he’s careful to tac the man’s full name onto to garner his attention.

“Oh I see, is she buried anywhere close?”

“No in fact, she’s alive and well.” His mother was only in town for the wedding thankfully, if he was being honest too, he wouldn’t be using the re-agent on her when she died. They weren’t exactly close, she only remained invested in his life to judge him on his use of their family money.

Dan’s amber eyes bulked for a second, looking exceptionally thoughtful before gracing him with a smile and a nod. 

“We’ll have to go back upstairs then,” 

“Yes, we will.” His re-agent was waiting.

“Professor Gruber will know how to get us back for a while,”

* * *

“When you want to return to the land of the dead, all you have to say is _Lovecraft_ ,” 

* * *

Herbert knew there shouldn’t be any problems in taking Daniel back to his abode. They’d stay out of sight of any late night strays, he’d grab the re-agent. Say they’d wait till morning for his mother to arrive, during the night he’d talk with Dan and get in what notes he could before tricking him back-or maybe even, for his own amusement, he could let Dan actually meet his mother.

Then they’d return, he’d get his information in the underworld, find another excuse to return for his actual wedding, and well, then he could publish his work and potentially...keep Dan either way.

Possessive bells rang and the sound although deafening didn’t hurt, in the background a chittering squeak relayed to his clogged ears, trying desperately to break through.

* * *

“I don’t know old friend, somethings not right about this. He ran into the woods, and now Megan comes back hysterical, blabbering about Doctor Cain being back from the dead. There is something going on, something at play that doesn’t agree with their union.” Hill lectured, eyes boring into Dean Halsey’s, willing him to listen, willing him to look down at the seeds of doubt he was planting.

He’d gotten rid of Dan, he could get rid of Doctor West too.

* * *

Dan takes a seat in the living room, not at all disturbed by the mayhem of the place. The groom took everything in with nothing but endearment. The glimpse of the man’s space told him more about his husband than words could.

He was a doctor if the medical books meant anything, a scientist as well because there was more than a few items lying about that didn’t pertain to the medical field. The cupboards were dusty from disuse, so much so worry spiked behind his eyes. The couch was firm where he sat, meaning that also didn’t get much use. Herbert didn’t seem to be self-sufficient in the ways a grown adult should. 

Well, Dan could do all that. They had to care for one another after all, they were married.

Herbert meanwhile headed towards his room, stuffing a filled syringe and two bottles of re-agent into his coat pocket before the door behind him shut and Megan Halsey stared at him with tearfully red and anguished eyes.

“Explain to me what happened on the bridge,” she gruelled, and he rolled his eyes while being only the tiniest bit surprised she saw the encounter. The surprise didn’t outweigh the irritation; when pertaining to her he doubted anything could.

“The bridge?” He feigns ignorance with raised brows and pursed lips, his tone childing.

“You were on the bridge, on the bridge with my Danny!” she shrieked. Now that gets his attention.

“Your Danny?” She was the bride. The bride that didn’t come back for Dan, the bride who didn’t find him. That fact alone made him smirk in triumph. _Dan was his._

Her shriek had the corpse standing, tampered steps carrying him down the hall towards his husband.

“If we’re to be married tomorrow Herbert, I want answers,” Meg knew the man just wanted her father’s practice, and she had no problem extorting him the same way he did her. 

Dan just outside the door shuttered at the muffled voice, the words clearer than the voice itself. Clear enough to pierce his skin in the same manner as glass.

 _“Lovecraft,”_ he ground out through his betrayal. Moving in a quick blur through the crowds, uncaring as he heard Herbert sputtering confused a few paces behind them. He hadn’t been sure it’d take them both back to the underworld but he’d hoped it hadn’t.

The other corpses seemed to notice his tear stained face, taking action quickly to deter...his husband from following. Dan knew not to go to the viewing spot, Herbert if he was really trying could always show up there, so he went somewhere better.

A niche corner with the similar view, sectioned off with a red seat for him to recline on. The coffin sette’s cushions were plump and lumpy from use, the slight deterrent not nearly enough to make Dan flee elsewhere. Not as his guiding light that’d stopped beating long enough ago that he couldn’t remember how the pulsing sensation even felt, ached as if a firm pressure was weighing it down, leaving it on the verge of shatter.

He’d been a physician before this, he knew full well there were things to this afterlife that wouldn’t have abided by a still cadaver in the upper world. Yet, not once had he questioned the matter of his heart. In fact, the realization that his eyes were watering, and tears were streaking down his gaunt, broken, and lacerated face felt more pressing to his addled mind.

Nothing of his seemed to be in working order, whether this was his fault or Herberts, or even the nameless bastard who’d murdered him, he didn’t know. Dan had always been so sure of what would become of his life.

He’d marry Meg, something he hadn’t been opposed to since she was a nice girl that he could get on with, even if he was certain she’d never be his soulmate. Then he’d take over her father’s practice, they’d likely have a child or two, maybe even three, something he would be fine with so long as he got another cat, and he’d retire and someday die.

That old plan didn’t matter now, his life had been taken and he’d fallen head over heels for a man he barely knew, even when his non-beating heart beamed that the man was his soulmate.

It must have been wrong, how could it have been right if it didn’t even beat? Herbert was to be married tomorrow by someone living, someone who likely had enough concerns of their own about his well-being to shout at him for answers. A girl...oh he’d been a fool to get his hopes up this way.

Herbert West didn’t love him in the same way he loved him the second their eyes met. And even then that wasn’t the full truth because Dan would have agreed he’d been in love the second he’d heard the man’s voice, full of passion, reciting vows that Dan could only assume hadn’t been meant for him.

Herbert West had a fiance and a husband, a husband he didn’t love and a fiance he apparently loved enough to shout it out to the moon itself.

When he’d been alive he’d felt what it was like to be loved, something he should have from his husband, but here and now as a corpse he doesn’t feel loved and it is surely a punishment for not being in love with who he originally was going to marry. It’s just his luck he married someone who he loved that didn’t love him back.

* * *

The dormouse draws his attention, slowly overcoming the ever ringing bells, especially as Dan slips out of view. Leaving him utterly alone among a sea of the unliving who determinedly were keeping him from following.

The mass of animated beings around him make the re-agent in his coat boil. He knows his work isn’t pointless, but it’s hard to remember that as he looks at what he’s always wanted in a manner he did not expert or even had anything to do with.

He tells himself he isn’t sulking as he heads to the bar, settling in the empty space as the people fan out at the sight of him. Herbert’s drawn to the piano for no other reason than it’s what he’s used to.

His mother had made him play when he was younger and it’d made him miserable, feeling miserable now, it only made sense to play.

* * *

Dan startled at Rufus’s sudden presence, the bones pushing at his thighs and smacking his face with its tail. Rufus jumped off once he’d shot up from his seat, running off somewhere Dan wasn’t able to follow.

Resigning himself to the inevitable, the ex-doctor shook the nearest corpse's arm, a simple look enough to ask his question. Wordlessly they pointed down to the bar where a solid rendition of a likely profound song that still came off as pretentious echoed.

It was nothing Dan himself had learned when he’d learned to play to impress Meg, but he could easily see how someone like Herbert would know it.

His presence wasn’t noticed when he stepped inside, and for that he was grateful because Herbert West truly was a sight as his fingers danced across ivory keys, his posture straight where Dan was sure it was normally hunched when he sat.

Shaking off his attraction for a second, Dan made his way over to the bench, taking a seat. Herbert looked up at him through his glasses, words about to blunder out of his mouth only for Dan to cut him off with a song of his own.

The song wasn’t anything known or even written, more so an expression of his feelings, the melancholy grew intense and more was written as Herbert’s fingers returned to the keys and they began to play in turn.

It’s more than he expected from the shorter man, but they took to the act at hand with more grace than gods. Even hurt Dan wants him to stay, but he’s never truly been selfish, not even in the instances he should be, so when their song begins to taper down and their fingers come to a halt, he only has one thing to say.

“I’ll let you go,” And isn’t that the most daring of love’s acts?

Green eyes shot to his own, a floundering anxiety brewing in the other man that was almost unbecoming of his character.

Dan twists off the ring, ignoring the grooves on his bones it left before placing it on the piano’s keys for the other man to take. Which Herbert does, getting to his feet nearly quicker than Dan does, to round on his front.

“Now Dan-”

A cough comes from the doorway, a welcome distraction from his...Herbert’s tousled bangs and desperate face.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything too pressing,” Gruber calls out, hunched over, his half skeletal remains flaking into dust as he scratches himself with bony fingers. 

It’s a miracle Doctor West doesn’t shout that he is.

“No not at all,” Dan assures, casually leaning back against the piano while defeatedly Herbert falls into the closest chair, running annoyed hands through his bangs.

“It’s about your marriage,” the first part comes out tentatively, the rest does not, “Since Doctor West isn’t dead the marriage isn’t valid, he can’t stay and your correspondence can’t continue unless…” they both know what he’s implying, and Dan is lucky he’d already promised to let Herbert go because how in the hell could he ever ask Herbert to die for him?

This thought stinks in the scientist's head like gas, worries not for his safety or continuing existence nonexistent when compared to the choir of the re-agent in his pocket. It sounds similar to the dormouse, at least with fewer notes.

“I’ll do it,” it’s not the answer Dan’s expecting, but it doesn’t matter, not as he’s rushing forward and pulling Herbert into a kiss far more heated than the first they shared. It’s warmer this time and Herbert is just as quick to return it.

* * *

Meg is frozen as the wedding proceeds without Herbert there, meaning her soon to be husband is none other than a man who’d watched her grow up at the side of her father. He reads off the vows with a more domineering tone than Herbert’s dull drawl, and neither are comparable to the recital years ago with Dan’s genuine lilt.

She doesn’t kiss him back, and she’s dismayed the table hadn’t caught fire by her pisspoor attempt at lighting a candle.

Death would have been kinder.

The reception is filled with people who she could almost believe are artificially happy. Nothing about them seemed to be in their control, they tell her to be grateful, they urge this is what is right and she doesn’t believe it because Hill isn’t Dan.

_Dan._

Running in a gown and heels is almost as useless as running in her nightmares, but she does it regardless. They don’t follow her but Hill does. He’s always been chasing her. 

Meg knows why she’s there at the bridge, where the water below rushes with vigor meaning the graveyard has finally melted and thawed. Dan had been here, she’d seen him with her own eyes, eyes that saw him terrifyingly transformed into cold skin before he-they disappeared.

There’s no sound logic that he’ll magically appear now, but she screams his name into a rising moon emerging from the clouds. She wails and weeps, Hill reacting in the closest thing to violence by grabbing her forearms and shaking her.

“Megan get a hold of yourself, he’s dead,” that fact had never been confirmed, and it makes her shriek because although it’d been assumed, to have it be confirmed by seeing his walking corpse strangled her.

“I love him,”

“That’s why I got rid of him!” Hill realizes he’s made a mistake as soon as the words come out of his mouth. In this stupor, in her shock, Meg throws herself backwards, over the ledge, and down into the icy water below.

* * *

Music carries throughout the bar as the dead convene to welcome their new arrival. Both Dan and Herbert stray far away, looking back over their view with Rufus running about behind them. 

Their hands are intertwined and the ring once again settles firmly over bone, Herbert’s own ring is actually on his hand as well. 

“You know you won’t…” Dan struggles with how to phrase it, but Herbert isn’t concerned. Not when he has Dan, and not when the re-agent is in his pocket. His goals now are meshed, but his drive to at least confirm his re-agent can do something is all that’s truly left for him in that avenue.

He’d already been dosing himself while alive, while dead the results may even come easier. It is no hardship to throw his being away when he knows he’ll just end up here with Dan who will always be waiting.

When someday it works, Dan can follow him back up and hopefully Herbert can listen to the man’s heart in the way he’d been craving since he realized how much it actually overran the man’s brain, even when it wasn’t beating!

“I know, so that’s why I have one single request,” Herbert informs dutifully, knowing it will gain mixed reactions, but it’s another chance for Dan to see the moonlight and he has a feeling that will make things better.

Dan’s face contorts, stern and worried, lips jutting. “And that is?”

“We have the wedding upstairs, in the graveyard,” 

There’s obvious trepidation when Dan nods, helpless to oblige because Herbert is already giving him his life. 

“Can Rufus walk our rings down the aisle?”

Herbert actually laughs, the sound Dan wanted to shove straight into his yearning heart and hold onto forever.

“Yes, yes he can,”

* * *

Word travels fast and no one but one dolly blonde bride was upset that they were all to attend a wedding.

“Who’s wedding?” she pleaded, trying to keep up with the hustle of preparations.

“Daniel Cain’s and Herbert West’s!” A random skeleton called out excitedly in response. She knows if her heart had been beating those words alone would have stopped it.

“We’re going upstairs,” is sung throughout this small niche of the underworld as they head towards the Miskatonic graveyard for a wedding and a new _official_ arrival.

* * *

With the way Dan’s smiling, it’s almost a surprise his thin cheek isn’t mirroring his torn one. A light ray of overcast blue makes the old doctor more otherworldly than his decayed visage. Hebert finds it more attractive than he cares to admit. 

Dr. Gruber holds the re-agent and a syringe. The one that Dan would be sliding into Herbert’s arm and overdosing him to death’s door where they’d truly and forever be twined in marriage as one.

If only Meg didn’t appear screaming, then it would have come much sooner. Herbert was anxious for his end, and anxious to lock Dan down as his own, damn her.

In a graveyard illuminated by the moon was a corpse bride and groom. Meg looked ecstatic and Dan looked at her sadly while Herbert felt befuddled and enraged. She’d been the new arrival?

She wouldn’t have Dan. He wouldn’t allow it.

“Meg?” 

“Oh my god Dan!” she moves to rush him into an embrace, stopping suddenly, looking behind them with horrified eyes. They turn and it’s another person the three of them can’t help but glare at with disdain.

Carl Hill. The man chuckles and claps, a textbook villain, and Herbert’s face twitches. 

“You killed Dan!” 

“That I did my dear, that I did-” there’s a plan about to be said, but Herbert had been cut off enough this week to last him his eternity. Stomping over to the gravedigger's shovel, he yanks it out of the dirt as Hill antagonizes the two victims of his whims, and Herbert gives Dan another wedding present by taking off the fuckers head.

“Can we proceed?” Gruber asks, and Dan laughs at the absurdity of it all, looking to Herbert for confirmation. A look that doesn’t go unnoticed by Meg who realizes Dan is not hers, and he never truly had been.

Daniel Cain belongs to Herbert West and that fact erupts her soul into a swarm of butterflies flying in the endless night while Rufus runs about with the rings and Dan guides a neon green concoction into Herbert’s vein.

They push down the plunger together, kissing even as Herbert writhes. 

He dies, and it is truly ‘till death do us part. They’d never really die again.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


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